After a moment, he turned back. “I have no deal with them. You should be asking Diego this.”
“I have, and I know everything he does.” I was in too deep to turn back, and I realized I didn’t want to, even if I was scared. Finally, I was getting what I came for. “Now I want to know what you know.”
He returned to standing in front of me. “What I know? My brother’s in serious trouble, and if he minimized the danger he’s in at all, then he lied to you. He’s putting everyone at risk, including you.”
“He isn’t, but someone is. Someone doesn’t want this deal to happen. Is it you? Are you the one stealing from him?”
His jaw sharpened as it ticked. “Be careful, Natalia. You’re out of your depth.”
It was the first crack in his composure I’d gotten tonight, and it sent a thrill through me. I wanted more. “I’ll come upstairs with you,” I said.
He glanced at the glass wall behind the DJ booth. It wasn’t a wall at all, I realized, but a one-way window that most likely looked from his office onto the dancefloor. I wondered if he’d been watching me before I’d even noticed him.
“Nyet, Natasha.”
I turned back to him. “No, in Russian,” I guessed.
“Correct. I have business now. Maybe another time.”
I tilted my head. “Is it easier to think of me differently as a Natasha?”
“Why would I want to think of you differently?”
“So you don’t have to see me as the little girl you once promised to protect.”
He tilted his head. The pulse at the base of his neck jumped as he let his eyes wander down my dress. “Believe me, I see you just fine as you are. I happen to like the name. I knew a Natasha once.” His eyes leapt back to mine. “She sucked my dick like it would end with a mouthful of gold.”
My throat constricted. Nobody had ever said anything like that to me. “That’s not why I wanted to come up. I won’t do that willingly. Not ever. But maybe Natasha said the same thing.”
He stilled completely. The lights and music seemed to dim along with his demeanor. “You’re accusing me of rape?”
My mom’s dress was ripped. It was perhaps the one thing I couldn’t bring myself to ask about. The answer might be too painful. “You expect me to believe your men do it, but you don’t?”
“You insult me. If I want a woman, I can get her without force,” he said sharply. “That includes you.”
I drew back with an audible swallow. He didn’t treat me the way others did, yet despite his steely expression and cool gaze, my gut told me he didn’t mean it. He only wanted a reaction. Could I trust that instinct, though? In my experience, cartel bosses didn’t tease.
And they didn’t invite women in skimpy dresses anywhere private to talk.
The dark cloud that’d just fallen over him seemed to lift. “With me, you always have a choice. You’re not beholden to my wishes, but I hope you’ll still carry them on your wings and deliver them for me.” He brushed hair from my cheek, trailing a fingertip over my skin in a way that I had to fight to keep my eyes from falling shut. “Just know that I don’t rely on anyone, not even the heavens, to grant my wishes. I make them come true on my own.”
He retreated a few steps, holding my gaze, before he turned and walked away.
I hung on his words. What were his wishes? What did they have to do with me? I stayed where I was despite my urge to call him back and ask the questions forming in my head.
Because nothing good could come from chasing after el anticristo.
Especially if he was saying what I thought he was.
If you’re what I want, then I’ll find a way to have you.
12
Natalia
Diego’s hand slipped higher up my dress as the glowing red hand of his speedometer rose. He sped away from the club through deserted roads as if he also knew of the after-dark danger Cristiano had warned me of.
Only the warm lights of the dashboard glowed against its all-black interior. Silence stretched over the smooth hum of his Mercedes once I’d finished relaying most of my conversation with Cristiano. All in all, there wasn’t much to tell.
“Are you okay?” Diego asked for the second time.
“I’m fine.” Because you’re a survivor. Like the monarch. Like me. Cristiano’s words echoed in my mind.
“He kept touching you because he knew I was there.” He released my leg to grip the steering wheel. “I assumed he’d frisk you, but that’s all.”
I wouldn’t even call what he’d done frisking. Cristiano had tested my boundaries as he’d taunted Diego. He’d had his hands everywhere from my ankles to my thighs, my neck and face. He’d touched me in ways only Diego should.